A color photographic silver halide light-sensitive material (hereinafter sometimes referred to merely as a "light-sensitive material") is generally prepared by providing silver halide emulsions with a coupler dispersed therein on a suitable support; couplers forming cyan, magenta and yellow dyes on coupling with an oxidation product of a color developing agent are dispersed in red-, green- and blue-sensitive silver halide emulsions layers, respectively, and provided in a suitable order in the form of multilayered structure.
The thus prepared light-sensitive material is exposed to light and, thereafter, is subjected to a series of treatment such as color development, bleaching, fixation, and stabilization to form ultimate color images.
Film materials bearing such color images are stored as records for long periods of time, or exhibited. These color images, however, are not always stable against light, heat and moisture. When the film material is exposed to light for a long period of time or is stored under the conditions of high temperature and high moisture, fading and discoloration of dye images and furthermore, discoloration of the white background usually occur, resulting in a reduction of image quality.
Such fading or discoloration of images is a disadvantage which can be said to be vital to recording materials. Thus, in order to eliminate the disadvantage, incorporation of additives or stabilizers has been proposed. Typical examples of additives which have been proposed for that purpose include hydroquinone derivatives, such as 2,5-di-tert-butylhydroquinone; phenol compounds, such as 2,6-di-tert-butyl-p-cresol, 4,4'-methylenebis(2,6-di-tert-butylphenol), 2,2'-methylenebis(4-ethyl-6-tert-butylphenol), and 4,4'-isopropylidenediphenol; tocopherol, and p-alkoxyphenol compounds. Specifically, hydroquinone derivatives are described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,360,290, 2,418,613, 2,675,314, 2,710,197, 2,704,713, 2,728,659, 2,732,300, 2,735,765, 2,710,801, 2,816,028, British Pat. No. 1,363,921, and Japanese Patent Publication No. 40819/81 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,138,259.
Hydroquinone derivatives are also used as anti-colorfoggants (anti-color contamination agent), as described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,728,659, 3,700,453, West German Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2,149,789, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,728,659, 3,935,016, 2,732,300 (corresponding to British Pat. No. 752,147), British Pat. Nos. 752,146, 1,086,208, Japanese Patent Publication Nos. 21249/75, 40818/81 corresponding to British Pat. No. 1,571,445, and 40816/81, and Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 69141/80 (The term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese Patent Application").
Conventional additives, however, which have been proposed to eliminate the above-described disadvantage, are not suitable for practical use; although they are effective to prevent the fading or discoloration of dye images, the effect is not sufficiently high, or problems such as deterioration of hue, formation of fog, poor dispersion, and formation of crystals are undesirably involved. Thus it can be said that a dye image stabilizer sufficiently satisfactory for practical use has not been proposed yet.